Homeless Encounter - WWYD?

Some here may be as liberal as Matt Taibbi, but nobody can write as well.

 

What if they really did want gas? What did you do then?

 

I saw one guy with tears in his eyes asking for money to get back home to Rome, Ga., in a Cracker Barrel parking lot. I think he tours the country scamming in Cracker Barrel lots. My sister-in-law encountered him the next week. Still hadn't made it to Rome.

Also have been hit numerous times by the couple saying they need expensive diapers or special formula. 99 percent of the time it's drugs.

There were two guys actually at a gas station who looked like they had a hard night asking for money to get home so I gave them a couple bucks. I was shocked as hell when they actually pulled up and starting counting their money and change and got gas.

I will give folks money if I think they aren't lying about it. The ones who hit you coming out of a restaurant and say they aren't asking for money then ask for money burn me.

 

This thread, and a similar one a few weeks back, is really interesting when considered alongside the one a few months back about the "pay it forward" streak in the Starbucks drive-through. IIRC there were some who poo-pooed the idea of helping people waiting to pay for overpriced coffee. Different situation altogeteher, I get that. But if you want a chance to completely control the outcome of your act of kindness, the drive-through thing works pretty well. To me, there's a larger picture -- and from what I'm reading here, it seems most of you kind of lean this way -- that we need to treat our fellow human beings well, though nobody wants to be taken for a rube.

I recently had an encounter that I'd consider a tangent to the panhandle one. I was out and about on a rainy day when I saw this woman standing under a bridge at the side of the road. It appeared to me she was just trying to stay dry. It didn't look like she was hitchhiking. So I pulled over and offered her a ride, which she gladly accepted. I ask where she needs to go, and she says to a particular gas station where her daughter works, so I head that way. We're almost there when she asks if I can spare any money, and I tell her I don't have any cash. She starts complaining about how people don't carry cash any more and how she hates all these debit cards. Harshed my "I helped someone" buzz, you know?

 

It never came to that.

 

But you had the BOOTSTRAPS!!! speech ready, right?

 

No, but my liberal friend had his "You're being victimized by all the people who got an education and got a job" speech ready.

 

A co-worker and I got panhandled inside a Jack in the Box by an employee on Christmas Day.

She asked us if we ate there regularly, which we don't because we are bureau reporters who were working out of the main office. She said she asked because she wanted to borrow some money to buy gas to get home from work and wanted to be able to pay us back.

Our thought was how do you come to work without a plan to make it home?

We could have given her some cash in the Christmas spirit, but we were taken aback by the request.

 

"I'll cross that bridge when I come to it" ... we've all done it. Well, I certainly have.

 

So at least you have money for the toll. There's a start.

 

Alternatively, perhaps she came to work not thinking she needed a plan to come home. Maybe she thought she had $20 in her purse, but forgot that she'd spent it on something else and had no other way to pay.

Back when I interviewed for my last journalism gig, I had about $20 in my pocket when my soon-to-be-supervisor checked me into the hotel (I'd interviewed all day). I was excited about the interview and used my room phone to call my folks and let 'em know how it went. Checked out of the hotel the next morning and there was that phone charge ... $14 (many of you younger guys don't remember when it was like this). I had almost no gas in my car, no credit card, and no way to get to the money in my checking account (back then there were no debit cards, and ATMs only worked within your home state). I dug some change out of the seat cushions and that, with the $6 I had left over from the $20, got me within 20 miles of home. At that point I was able to get in touch with a buddy who came with the couple of bucks I needed to get to where I could get some gas.

 

I get that type of situation, but in the case I explained, I would have asked my co-workers for a loan or even put out a tip cup before asking customers I've never seen before.

I'm pretty sure if we decided to contact her manager about the experience, he/she would not have been happy.